GOING ... GOING ... GOING AGAIN

If there’s one thing the Fiver demands, it’s standards. Now we mention it, in the mere eight hours it’s taken to hone today’s epistle, we’ve broken off twice to tell the work experience boy to tuck his shirt in, created a standstill in the canteen on account of an overly viscous balti sauce, and reduced to tears a colleague who couldn’t tell us the square root of pi. All of which makes the Fiver exceptionally well-respected around the office, and explains why we’re generally left alone – well alone – to make sure that our labour of love falls punctually into your warm embrace at 5.28pm every time. Standards! Again!

And if we don’t reach those standards ourselves then, well. An undone shoelace sends us beneath our desk in a crumpled ball. Unconscious overuse of the comma, and, tomorrow, we’ll take a duvet day. So we’re not going to take issue with $tevie MBE, whose recent life and times have come to be comprehensively documented in these pages, telling the world that his slip against Chelsea precipitated “probably the worst three months of my life”. That particular period in the Fiver’s existence bears little thinking about – the only remaining visual cue is a lock from Ian Marshall’s mullet (d.1994) that we keep in our safe place – so we know exactly how he must be feeling. Second in the Premier League by a mere two points after not challenging for years? Not good enough. England captain in Brazil? Not good enough. Meeting low World Cup expectations with accordingly slimline results? Unacceptable. Life could not be worse.

“I haven’t made a bad pass or a mistake. That’s why it was cruel,” $tevie explained, confiding intimately in the slavering hordes somewhere in America, the latest terrible stop in those terrible months. “Every single person on the planet slips at some point in their life, whether it is on a set of stairs, on the floor or whatever.”

Preach. Which is why even the Fiver, its heart evidently overheating in the St Pancras sun, thinks $tevie has been slightly hard on himself over this past quarter-year. Surely Brazil must have been nice? Isn’t Mr Roy a lovely guy to work for? And for one thing, there’s little to suggest Liverpool would have broken down Chelsea and taken the three points that would have made a difference, slip or none. For another, it wasn’t $tevie who suddenly threw away a three-goal lead at Crystal Palace when Brendan Rodgers’s side had seemed impressively unbowed by their Shockingly Unfair Defeat To Anti-Football FC. What $tevie did, and knows he did, is provide a lightning rod – ironically, you know, ha ha, from a prostrate position – for all else that Liverpool didn’t manage to do in those final few weeks. And when the sands of time are running as fast on your career as on $tevie’s, the most daring and exciting of seasons seems to count for little unless it yields the greatest prize of all: it’s all, or it’s nothing, and the feeling of responsibility is always going to outweigh the reality that, in truth, he and Liverpool did rather well.

Not that we’d tell $tevie any of this. None of it! It wasn’t good enough, we’ll inform him. You should be feeling like this for six months, we’ll snarl. And if it happens again we’ll … we’ll… (Fiver realises with a start that it’s about to MISS ITS DEADLINE, and leaves $tevie hanging in the name of slavish punctiliousness).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“He called me a monkey during a Real-Barça match. I didn’t shake his hand and he spat at me, so I threw a bottle at him” – Roma’s Seydou Keita explains why he decided to give Pepe an early shower during a Roma v Real Madrid friendly.

A BIGGER PLUG THAN THE ONE FROM THE BFG’S BATH

FIVER LETTERS

“In line with your (wholly justified) commitment to exposing the ridiculousness of Louie Louie (Tuesday’s Fiver), I hope that you will point out his post-match comments on the team’s performance in last night’s friendly against Internazionale: ‘I’m pleased. We played better than our other games. We played well and conceded only one shot on goal. We created six or seven chances and that means it’s 7-1.’ Alas, since the score line is measured in goals and not chances, the game ended in a penalty shootout” – Mipe.

“Re. Bit and Bob No2 on Tuesday: ‘Bastian Schweinsteiger was filmed chanting abusive songs about Borussia Dortmund’s players, and their mothers – many of whom he played alongside in Brazil,’ eh? It’s like a red rag to a pedant. I swear you’ve started doing this sort of thing on purpose” – Hugh Watson.

“Re. Tuesday’s Fiver: I’ve quietly suspected a bit of Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome with Van Gaal, and this isn’t dispelled by his apparently brusque and inaccurate stance with regards to ichthyology. Muskellunge are predatory and (occasionally cannibalistic) fish, and beyond their juvenile stages, are highly unlikely to be found in schools, unruly or otherwise. I suggest Aloysius focus more on his ‘this is a transition season’ bantz, and less on the aquatic fauna of North America” – Matt Winter.

“I was just glancing through the upcoming fixtures for the Big Cup, when I noticed that hot bed of soccer Cyprus, has two teams in the qualifying rounds, whereas Scotland only has one team representing that proud nation. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!” – Richard Oliver (Did Cyprus used to have three representatives? Honk! Etc and so on - Fiver Ed).

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Oddly, after ruling Ravel Morrison out of his plans at West Ham and then being told by the club’s co-chairman David Sullivan to think again, Sam Allardyce has ruled the forward back into his plans.

David Trezeguet has continued his international tour of the world and has signed a one-year deal to join the India football franchise Pune City. “Trezeguet will be our marquee player. He will spearhead our team, score goals and hopefully win the league for us,” no pressured Pune’s chief executive Gaurav Modwel.

Luke Shaw has taken the sensible decision to agree with Louis van Gaal after being told he is unfit. “I am fit but I am not at the high level he demands,” he wheezed.

And after finding themselves 5-2 down and having had two players sent off, Ryman League side Peacehaven FC simply walked off in the 75th minute of their friendly against Division One South’s Merstham. “It was getting a bit feisty out there, no question about that, but that is something you have to deal with,” huffed Merstham manager Hayden Bird.